Vladimir Ryzhkov, nominee of the Duma's "Russia is Our Home" faction, has been elected first deputy speaker of the Russian parliament. Ryzhkov, 31, replaces Aleksandr Shokhin, who has been elected faction leader. (Itar-Tass, September 10) Security Director Kidnapped in Ingushetia.

The latest victims of the wave of kidnappings sweeping Russia's northern Caucasus are the director of the Federal Security Service in Ingushetia, Yury Gribov, and one of his officers. The two men were kidnapped early this morning by unidentified gunmen in the Ingush capital, Nazran.... MORE

A Russian space agency official has denied reports that two Russian cosmonauts are to be fined or otherwise disciplined for their role in the collision between the Mir space station and a cargo craft that severely damaged the space station in July. (BBC, Itar-Tass, September... MORE

The NATO Council will invite Russia's defense minister, Gen. Igor Sergeev, to participate in an informal meeting of NATO defense chiefs in Maastricht on October 1-2, an Alliance official said yesterday. The NATO ministers intend also to hold separate talks with their counterparts from Poland,... MORE

Russia will apparently go ahead with plans to build a floating nuclear power plant that will supply energy to the remote Chukotka region in the Far East. The Russian government approved the controversial plan yesterday; it had already received approval from the International Atomic Energy... MORE

Kazakhstan's science minister, Vladimir Shkolnik, announced yesterday a plan to build a nuclear power plant in eastern Kazakhstan on the shore of Lake Balkhash. The design by the St. Petersburg's firm Atomproyekt envisages three power-generating blocks of 640 megawatt capacity each. Construction is planned to... MORE

The Russian prosecutor general has launched an investigation to determine who tapped the telephone of First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. (Itar-Tass, September 9) On August 4, the newspaper Novaya gazeta published the transcript of a phone conversation between Nemtsov and businessman Sergei Lisovsky (who... MORE

The Russian Duma will debate two different amnesties in coming weeks: one for sick and elderly prisoners, and the other to try to attract back to Russia some of the estimated $60 billion smuggled out of the country and invested abroad. President Yeltsin has sent... MORE

The Yeltsin leadership is also proposing another kind of amnesty -- one that it hopes will encourage Russians to repatriate exported capital and fuel an eagerly awaited but elusive economic turnaround. Sergei Almazov, head of the Federal Tax Police, says the government wants to declare... MORE

Moscow officials were kept busy yesterday denying two recent charges that Russia is contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The most recent came yesterday when the Washington Times -- quoting an Israeli intelligence report -- accused Russia and China of helping Iran to develop... MORE